PARENTS: A Gift to be Cherished Forever

Your parents, they give you YOUR life, but then they give you THEIR Life. Chuck Palahiuk

It feels weird, sad, awkward and increasingly depressing when we see the world and the surroundings we are living in. Where is all the love and respect disappearing? Let alone the strangers we meet everyday, we do not even have any respect for our parents any more. These are the people who brought us in this world and it is horrifying to see the distress the parents of today are going through.

From the day we are born, parents spend their lives trying to bring up, nourish, teach and develop their children into the greatest human beings they can possibly make them. They do whatever is in their hands to see that the needs of their children are met. Parents make unconditional sacrifices and give up their lives for us.

When we are young, parents sacrifice their sleep and rest. They are the first ones to wake up and the last ones to go to sleep. They are focused only on one goal, to provide for their children. They go through continuous hard work all day just to make sure that they have done everything for their children, from giving us food and shelter, to teaching us how to prepare for the world, to teaching us how to prepare for judgment day, to teaching us how to be a good citizen and most importantly, how to be great human beings.

Parents do all this not to get any benefit from their children, but only with the hope and belief that their children will become pious, educated, and respectful to their parents, useful to their family, society, country and a living example of success.

You see, we leave our beloved parents heartbroken every single day of our lives. When we hurt our parents, we are actually hurting ourselves. Who in the world is crazy enough to do harm to themselves? Taking into consideration the love they have given us, have we ever for a moment thought what they have been through to make us happy? Are we grateful for what they have done for us? Have we shown them our gratitude? Unfortunately, instead of loving them back, respecting them, being grateful and showing gratitude, we have always been complaining, blaming and hurting them. By refusing to choose a positive attitude and thinking that whatever they have done for us is to restrict us in one way or the other is the biggest mistake of our lives.

We forget that parents are the ones who have taught us the meaning of life; they have taught us how to live this life and lead a life of contentment. They are the ones who have given us everything, from A to Z. Yet, we are ungrateful and disrespectful towards them. We do not even pay heed to what they have to say and take them for granted. Is this humanly possible? How can we be so cruel & shrewd?

It is our moral responsibility to take care of our parents. We should make sure that we be good human beings as whatever we do in this world reflects upon our parent’s personalities and their upbringing. Listening to and obeying your parents is the only way we can show our parents that we really love them and care for them. It is a way to show them that their precious time that they have spent in making us great human beings has not gone in vain and they have been successful. This is all they want from us and we should do everything in order to assure this to them.

Personally, I make sure that I think of my parents while doing anything in daily life. Even though I have been away from them for a few years now and do not have their watchful eye over me, I think how my parents would feel or react if I did a certain thing and they knew about it. I do it if I feel my parents would be happy and I don’t if I feel the other way round. This way, I make sure that I do the right thing in whatever I do, which is first of all, of benefit to me and secondly, it makes them the proudest parents when they come to know and realize that their child cares for them and has so much respect for what they want you to be in life.

No feeling in the world is as great as the one which we get when we act in accordance to our parent’s wishes and desires. One feels on top of the world when a child’s parents are happy. When your parents are happy and satisfied with you, it doesn’t matter what the world thinks, does or says. Parents are everything that matters.

We are in insurmountable debt when it comes to the amount of unconditional love we have received from our parents. We cannot even repay one minute of their lost sleep that occurred as they were caring for us, let alone a life long duration of continuous sacrifices that they have made for us.

Parents are the Angels of our lives and we should make sure that we do our best to make them happy, fulfill their desires and their wishes. Without respect for ones parents, a human being’s life is meaningless and whatever success he may have achieved in life is of no value if the people who brought him in this world are not happy. Parents are a gift of GOD who are to be cherished forever. There is nothing we can do to repay them. The least we can do is to respect them, love them and live our lives according to their wishes.

I dedicate the following poem to my beloved parents, as this special month brings their 28th Wedding Anniversary. May they live long and may their huge shadow of love and protection always remain with us. Amen

Dear Parents,

God has already blessed me

For having parents like you
Which makes me want to live my life
All the way through
I would like to say a prayer
For you to always know
How much I care for you
Which sometimes I never show
I'll for always love you
For taking care of me
I'll forever remember the few
Who aren't so lucky
You have taught me so much,
That so little I know
That will help all the way through my life
Your advice will never go
Thank you for what you have done for me
Thank you for what you have made me see
Although sometimes I don't agree
I have come to realize
That your words are like a guarantee

Author Unknown

Life is like a Railway Station

What is life? What is the purpose of life? What are we here for? Why were we sent? I am sure that we have all asked this questionin our lives, around or within ourselves at some stage or phase of life or the other. This is an extremely deep quest that manypeople are in search of but seldom find.

Leaving aside the first few years of life when we have no clue orrecollection of what is happening or why it is happening, the moment one starts to realize starting from minor memories of Pre-school, then kindergarten to school to college to university, it has been one struggle after another. This includes parental & peer pressure, cultural pressure, educational excellence or otherwise, sports and competing in all areas with others. Then comes the search for a suitable job and it starts all over again, learning, competing and excelling in whatever you do or try to do, then marriage, kids, helping kids grow, look after their futures, save money at the same time for your own old age and hoping to leave some for the children and this struggle continue still we leave this world. In between we do get periods of relief, enjoyment and happiness at our achievements, our excellence and relaxation during vacations. This is of course coupled with periods of disappointment, loss and dejection. It seems that itis useless as it is a struggle all the way.

In order not to generalize, this is the pattern of most people around the world until and unless you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth but then these people have their own set of issues, difficulties and problems.

The main purpose of saying all this is the fact thatachievements, satisfaction, contentment, challenges, problems, disappointments and obstacles are all part of every human beings life. These have to occur at different stages no matter what. These are things that will happen even if we don't do anything to make them happen. It is all part of a normal life and that is how life goes on. What we need to understand is the fact that we need to make our lives different from these normal lives. We need todo something different in life and contribute to the world we live in. I am not saying that we should not do the above, but weshould add something even more valuable. Something that is different, worthwhile and beneficial in the long term, even afterdeath.

I have tried to think out of the box and keep religion out of the discourse, but this is not always possible as the main basis of life boils down to your belief in your GOD. We are created in God's image and bear a strong relationship with Him. Being in this relationship is the only thing that will satisfy our souls. We have done many noble deeds in our lives but did we do what we were designed for, what are we designed for.? Only God knows butsince we are created in His image we are designed to do good.

As the saying goes:

'True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness'. Albert Einstein.

What we need to do is that we identify a greater purpose in life then just living it like every other human being does. We need to live life consciously and act in a way that it benefits humanity and indulge in life purposes that prepare you for death and the life thereafter.

In the topic of this particular article I say that, 'Life is likea Railway station'. What do I mean by this? I mean to say that when we come to a stop at a railway station, we do not stop and start decorating our waiting rooms, but, we prepare for our final destination. Similarly, life is a waiting room and our final destination is yet to be reached, that is the life hereafter. We need to prepare ourselves for that and not have ALL ourconcentration on fulfilling our desires and wishes.

How we prepare for it depends on our personalities, qualities, talents, the opportunities and the resources that we have access to. We need to identify how we can best give back to this world given our strengths and limitations. We can do social service, help the poor and needy, preach, give charity, be a teacher and give knowledge to the future generations, write articles and books providing valuable life changing advice and food for thought, protecting our country, protecting our family, loving our family, living life in the way of God and what not. The list just goes on and on.

It is up to us to identify what we are capable of doing and howwe can bit by bit, contribute to the world and give back something valuable. We can only say that we have lived a life of purpose when you leave a mark and people remember you after you have left this world.

If we analyze, all this good can only be done through realization of goodness and righteousness and this comes only by being close to your God. Since God is perfect, we are supposed to be perfect and we have been created to implement that perfection, that is, a world without hunger, hatred, war, illness, ignorance and depression. A world full of nourishment, love, peace, health, knowledge and joy. A world, that, not only reflects God's goodness but His pureness, too. Have we done that? We have not, unfortunately and instead of creating and living by God's mandate we have lived and continue to live with our desires and do not try and mirror God's infiniteness but reflect our own limitation's.

So let's work together to make this home of ours, the Earth, a heaven by working towards making it a place reflective of God Almighty's goodness and make it our purpose in life instead getting bogged down in our own mundane day to day activity.

Let us contribute towards making this world a better place tolive for all of us by sharing, living conscientiously, courageously, to resonate with love and compassion, to awaken the great sprits within others and ourselves and to finally leave this world in peace and a better place for those who will follow, not only among our near and dear ones but spread God's goodness that is reflected in us to every corner and to everyone.

Let us reflect God's image as it should be by reaching to him andnot the one we have created for ourselves of war, hunger, illnesses and strife. This, to me, is our purpose in life other than our self-serving interests necessary to survive in this world.

What You Can Do to Improve Yourself

The importance of doing well in life cannot be denied. Everyone has been given a life and everyone exists but the main difference between the way you live your life and the way others do it is to live a fulfilling and content life. At the end of the day, when you look back at your life, you should be able to see it in a positive light and should be satisfied with the fact that you did whatever you could to make it worthwhile.

How can you make sure that your life was well lived? Well, to determine that, you do not need to wait for your life to pass by in front of your eyes and not realize what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. You need to slow down a bit and analyze all the happenings in your life. It is actually a SWOT analysis of your life. You remember how we studied the SWOT analysis in that case study we did in school. There we were analyzing our business. Why were we analyzing our business? So that we could identify our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and once we had done that, we knew where we stood and what needed to be done to improve the business.

Similarly, in order to improve ourselves, we need to identify the strengths that we possess, the weaknesses that hinder our progress, the opportunities that give you the hope to move forward towards contentment and the threats that we face in our lives. Once this is done, like our business we are also in a position to better understand our life and then we can plan accordingly as to what needs to be done to improve our life.

I attempted to do exactly the same thing with my life. I was going through a rough phase where things were not going right and negative thoughts and feelings were arising too often for my liking. Although this is all but natural, I decided that I need to take life into my own hands. As mentioned above, once I had conducted a SWOT analysis of my life, I had a much clearer view of where I stood. Identifying the positive part first, the strengths & opportunities, to my surprise it actually opened my eyes as to the innumerable number of strengths that I possessed personally and the several opportunities I was blessed with. This acted as a catalyst that boosted my self confidence to a higher level altogether.

Next, when I went through my weaknesses and the threats that I faced I discovered that these were things that actually had solutions. I mean, they were so minor as compared to my strengths and opportunities that I started thinking that it wasn't all that hard and these were just minor kinks in my armory that needed to be fixed in order to function to the maximum level.

Believe me, once you go through this brain storming process, you will feel a lot better when you discover the amount of positives GOD has blessed us with. My father always gives this example that like a piece of cloth we also have wrinkles in our personality and these wrinkles can always be ironed out. So it is not such a big deal. You are not actually as bad as you think you are and all you need to do is to iron these wrinkles and drive them out of your personality. Sure it takes persistence and perseverance to do the same but it happens, provided you have the desire and will. So, I set out to fix these kinks in my armory, the wrinkles in my personality, I stuck to the task and was well on my way and I still am.

Over a prolonged period of our life time we do certain things which are either right or wrong. When we keep on doing the same thing over and over again, it actually becomes a habit and a major part of our personalities.

Therefore, it is not all that easy to get rid of the negatives all at once and requires most importantly realization, a conscious effort and the desire and will to accomplish what you have set out for. If you do not fully believe in what you want you would not be able to do justice to yourself and therefore, we first need to believe ourselves that these things need to be corrected. Once that's done, you are ready to give it your 200% and will see that you succeed in it.

One of the major things that I wasn't all that happy about with myself was my spirituality. I was dissatisfied with the fact that I didn't pray regularly, I had lost my connection with GOD and as a result I figured that my faith was becoming weak. When you lose faith, you can't face life with all the force you should face it with. One of the important ways of improving ourselves is by getting rid of the bad habits and establishing new ones. I had attempted to break my bad habits several times before as well but I always ended up doing it for a few days and then I was back to square one. This time I finally figured that in the beginning self discipline was the key. Once you stick to a task through self discipline for some time, it eventually automatically becomes a habit. I identified why I wanted to establish the good habits and what benefit it would give me and then used my true desire and will power to tell myself that I had to stick to each task at any cost. I had the desire, belief and motivation and that helped me fight my inner self and the evil devil within me telling me to fall for my shallow wishes and desires. It was a bit daunting in the beginning but once I decided to be patient and persevere, I succeeded and it has been months ever since and I am proud to say that I have stuck to the task in hand and am succeeding beyond my expectations.

I kept a constant track of my progress. When I saw the positive results and the difference it made to my life, I just kept on getting more and more motivated and this constant motivation has helped me develop the new habits and they are fast becoming a part of my personality. Everyone sees the difference and are most appreciative and at the end of it all, you succeed at your goals, are happy and content with yourself and keep moving in a positive direction ensuring that we achieve even higher heights and this ultimately results in eternal confidence and satisfaction making the world look a lot more beautiful.

I have done it and now it is your turn to do it. Let your creative and positive juices flow and see how your sincere desire, belief and motivation makes you the King of your world.

Try it and let me know. Good Luck!

Designing Life: Strategy for Life

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are that you will fall into someone else’s life plan. And guess what they have planned for you? NOT MUCH!
Jim Rohn

I have experienced and seen this throughout my life and have recently started to seriously wonder how people cannot have a plan for life. It is astonishing to say the least but, living a life without a plan or even without the slightest of ideas as to what you want to make of it, is literally like a blind person walking in the middle of a busy highway. Sooner or later, you are bound to get hit and suffer the consequences.

It is of paramount importance that one identifies the most significant and important aspects that encompass one’s life. There are several things we need to keep in mind. These may include your education, career, health, family, social life and personal development to mention a few. We will talk about these as well as other aspects of life in more detail in another article but first we need to identify the importance of designing and planning your life. Remember, it is your life and only you know how you want to live up to this great gift given to us by GOD. So make the most of it and do not let it go to waste. We are only going to end up with regrets later. It is always better to live a life of purpose and with your own aspirations rather then to let it go about blindly and later cry over spilt milk.

So, let us see and try to work out what the real benefits and drawbacks of having a life plan are and what the consequences might be if you do not have one at all.

Benefits of having a strategy for Life

Focus on Goals & Life: You will have goals for your life and a central point to focus on. This will result in you not falling for the petty worries and unimportant issues in life that so many of us have fallen into without reaping any rewards or any sort of satisfaction from them. You will live a balanced life and with focus on goals and life, you will see yourself where you want to be and seeing it is half the job done.

Direction: A life plan reassures you and keeps you conscious to the fact that you take care that you are on the right track at all times and even if you are not at some stage, you know what you need to do to set things right. You know exactly what needs to be done to achieve what you want to achieve.

Discipline: A designed life plan will ensure that you are disciplined and are living by solid and concrete principles. Hence, you become an unforgettable example for the world.

Accomplishment of Dreams: When you have a focus, you move forward and you move in the right direction. Moving in the right direction means achieving the real purpose and accomplishing your dreams.

No Regrets: You would have lived a life which was chosen by you and was not out of mere coincidence or directed by someone else. Your life would be yours and would have been lived according to your will and desire. This will lead to contentment in your efforts and would be a life without regrets. At least you chose it and you lived it the way you wanted to.

Happiness & Contentment: When you have finally accomplished and achieved your goals, it is going to result in the ultimate peak of satisfaction with life and that is all what we are living our life for, Happiness & Contentment! This happiness would be in the present life as well as in the life hereafter.

Drawbacks

Thinking of the drawbacks, I really can’t think of too many drawbacks except one major one, and that is the fact that things might not go according to plan. What fun would life be if everything went according to plan? Having said that, you would at least have a direction in life if nothing else.

See, we plan a trip, a wedding and even an uneventful day in our lives but we are never sure if it is going to be the way we plan it to be. This doesn’t mean that we do not plan. We do the best we can and have no choice other than to leave the rest to destiny. This drawback is too insignificant compared to the benefits. I say it is worth taking the risk and giving yourself at least a chance to live the life that was lived on purpose and was lived consciously.

As the common saying, ‘MAN proposes GOD disposes!’

So what happens when you live a precise, designed and planned life? When you plan, you plan good and you plan big and you live it consciously. When you do that, you will most probably then not, achieve it and even if you don’t, you would be remembered for the way you lived. With discipline, dignity and principles! Therefore, leaving an example for others to live by and we would have lived according to our wishes, we would be satisfied, our family would be proud of us and most importantly our GOD would be proud of us. We all would be the ultimate winners! Hence, we prosper in the world and also in the world that awaits us after death.

But remember, the plans need to be realistic. Having wild plans that are not practical and not realistic is almost always going to lead you to disaster.

Hotelier of the Future

Welcome to my Professional Career!

I’ll briefly introduce myself to you so that you can get to know me a bit better। I am a 23 years old guy, born on October 18th, 1985 in Lahore, Pakistan. I have graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in Hospitality & Tourism Management from the ‘Swiss Hotel Management School (SHMS)’, Leysin, Switzerland, one of the Top 10 Hotel Schools of the World. I completed my dissertation in Destination Marketing.

I have lived most of my life in the Middle East and attended high school (H.S.S.C) from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I received my BTEC EDXCEL Higher National Diploma in Hospitality & Tourism Management from the 'Gulf College of Hospitality & Tourism Management' (GCHT), Kingdom of Bahrain and was the topper student for 2 consecutive years. I have completed a couple of internships from Bahrain as well.

Among my other achievements and accomplishments till date, I hold a European hospitality qualification; holder of the ‘Swiss Hotelier Certificate’ & ‘The Swiss Connoisseur Series’ and have also had a paper published in the Atlas HotelPlan Conference 2008, in Belgrade, Serbia. I am an associate of the ‘Institute of Hospitality’, United Kingdom, the most prestigious hospitality organization in the world, a member of ‘Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International’ (HSMAI), USA and ‘Swiss Hotel Management School (SHMS) Alumni’, Switzerland as well.

I have worked for International Hotel chains like ‘Starwood’ & ‘Rezidor Hospitality’ and was also among the Top 10 hotel graduates shortlisted from the Middle East for the ‘Starwood Vita Futura 2008’ program. I have lived in Europe, Middle East & South Asia and visited 5 countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, U.A.E (Abu-Dhabi & Dubai) & Switzerland. I love to travel and hope to see the world some day. I speak 6 languages including Urdu, English, Punjabi, Hindi and basic knowledge of Arabic and French.

'Following the Noble Path is like entering a dark room with a light in the hand; the darkness will all be cleared away, and the room will be filled with light।" May the path you follow light up your life and the lives of everyone you meet'.

Purpose of the Website: Discovering Life

“Dedicate your life to a set of principles.”

Welcome to my Den!

My name is Talha and as the title suggests, this is my den for life discovery, self discovery and personal development. It is an absolute pleasure to see you here and I am most grateful to you for taking out the time to visit my website. I have big plans for you as well as for myself which I am hopeful of achieving through the use of this highly effective avenue.

I hope to reach out to those people who are thoughtful, conscious of their surroundings and the world they live in and those who want to find the real purpose of life and want to do well in the real sense. We all are curious at some point in our lives as to why we exist? What we are here for? How to make the best use of it? How to succeed in life? How to succeed in the life hereafter? In short, how to be happy and content with life? Like you, I also am in a constant quest to learn what this life is about and ways to make the best use of it so that I can die with content or at least without any regrets.

Why I am I doing this? I have recently developed this urge and deep desire to be the best human being and citizen that I could possibly be. If I succeed in fulfilling this desire, I would be able to please my GOD, my parents, my family, myself resulting in success in life. I have always had the desire to be a considerate and decent human being and I have done that to a certain extent but this recent desire is much stronger and needs to be met with renewed spirit and energy in order to reach the required level of satisfaction, contentment, happiness and success I hope to obtain.

I have always placed great emphasis on balance, on moral values, on principles and on good character and therefore, I have often found myself questioning others and thinking about the meaning of life, religion, philosophy, what constitutes a good human being, a good citizen and a good life.

Therefore, the aim of this website is to basically try and discover the different aspects of life and to successfully go through each phase of life as it progresses gradually and unfolds in front of us. Each day brings a new challenge that needs to be faced, that needs to be dealt with and that needs to be resolved. Through this blog, I wish to observe, think, ponder and constantly improve my understanding of how life works, working on my personal growth and development in every aspect of life and ultimately try to enhance self knowledge and identity.

This blog would cover a variety of themes, subjects or topics as you may call them including quality of life, life plan, life design, purpose of life, goal setting, principles, motivation, achievements and accomplishments, aspirations, positivity, education, career, finances, developing potential, relationships, habits and routines, moral values, ethics, character, transcending negative qualities, emotional intelligence (managing emotions) and spiritual development to mention just a few.

All in all it is an attempt at personal development, dealing with daily life that includes self development as well as methods, tools and techniques used to reach the highest human potential possible. Through this, I also wish to obtain purely personal benefit through the expression of my thoughts, saying things that I never said, things that people were not ready to listen to and except and the way I have always wanted to live my life.

Success in the above would result in the cleansing of the mind, body, heart, soul and the spirit!

As the famous quote,

“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”